


Forever Girl

by TheEvangelion



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Children, Dementia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Endgame Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, F/F, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Kara Danvers Loves Lena Luthor, Lena Luthor Knows Kara Danvers Is Supergirl, Lena Luthor Loves Kara Danvers, Lesbian Relationship, Lesbian Sex, Love, Marriage, Married Life, Protective Lena Luthor, Romance, Sad Lena Luthor, SuperCorp, SuperCorp marriage, endgame SuperCorp, lesbian love, their lives together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:01:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28388958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheEvangelion/pseuds/TheEvangelion
Summary: Prompt fill: "While Kara doesn’t physically age at the same rate, Lena begins to notice strange things as they grow older together. Entirely up to you — hurt me but also make me feel like love is real, please."TW: Hurt/comfort, cognitive decline, but this is also very much an endgame Supercorp love story of their whole lives playing out together as soulmates.ONE SHOT.
Relationships: Kara Danvers & Lena Luthor, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 231
Kudos: 743





	1. Chapter 1

“You’re in big, big trouble.” Lena can’t help but laugh despite the two fractured ribs. The henchmen pay her no mind, and the one who carries her over his shoulder through the steel door manages a little shrug. “Your safe rooms and your protocols won’t make any difference.” Lena huffs over the blaring alarms. “My wife is very, very good at coming to the rescue. It’s kind of her thing actually.”

When the cement corridor caves in like a house of cards, rubble and corrugated steel diving outwards in every direction like a gunshot entry wound, the only person who breathes a sigh of relief is Lena Luthor.

There’s a flash of blue and red, a cacophonous supersonic swirl of it. When Lena manages to fix eyes on her wife’s discernible form—stood tall and mighty with her hands on her hips, doing the pose— she feels like she can finally prioritise the throbbing aches and pains in her body.

“Are you okay?” Kara’s blue eyes land on her quickly as she takes down attackers left and right.

“Peachy baby,” Lena winces.

“I would have gotten here sooner—”

“You got here just on time.” Lena feels calm and collected despite the two day hostage situation. “Trust me, I had no concerns. Go, beat them up. I’m just fine I promise.” She waves off the furied blur down the corridor without a second thought.

Her wife is _Supergirl_. Really, what is there for Lena Luthor to be scared of? A two day hostage situation is merely a mild inconvenience.

Certainly nothing worth panicking over.

***

In the hospital, Lena drifts in and out of sleep like a wayfarer treading along the whims of the morphine drip. Sometimes there’s food on the little tray waiting for her, other times she awakes to a blanket tucked up and over her shoulders. The only constant is Kara. She sits there in the plastic chair reading books like a sentinel with nothing better to do.

“Have you left at all?” Lena cleared the inactivity from her voice.

“Potty break at two o’clock,” Kara hums and doesn’t look up from her page. “School bus hurtling towards a farmer’s market at four. Both of them took me three minutes. Alex was here in the interim.”

“Of course she was,” Lena chuckles, wincing from the dull throb.

It’s enough to snatch Kara’s blue eyes from the book and have her fussing instantaneously.

“Here, take a sip of water baby. I’ll get a nurse.”

“You don’t have to get a nurse every time I grumble. I was shot, getting shot is supposed to hurt.” Lena grasps her wife’s forearm. “You should be grateful, if it didn’t hurt so bad I would do it way more often.”

“You’re not funny,” Kara fixes her glasses, tight-lipped and unreachable.

“Is sorry a good place to start?”

“You don’t have to be sorry. You didn’t do it on purpose. I’m angry because I asked you if you were okay, and you failed to mention you had been—” Kara stops, her chest freezing as though she could not bring herself to say that word. “You just looked like you fell asleep when I came back to you… I didn’t. I didn’t even realise what had happened.”

“Okay, but in fairness, I did not know I had been shot until you were in the thick of it with six bad guys. I didn’t want to put too much on your plate.”

“You are the plate!” Kara finally burst. “You are the whole plate, and the cutlery, and the table, and my entire universe. We’re supposed to tell each other things, like if we’re running out of milk or, you know, if we’ve been shot!”

“Listen to me,” Lena hushes, pressing her palm into a pink and wet cheek. “Listen. I am not going to do that again, because you are the invincible one and I have the delicate fleshy organs that need protecting sometimes. So if I get shot in future, which I’m not planning on doing, then you will be the very first to know.”

“That’s all I ask,” Kara exhales.

“I love you.”

“I love you more.”

“I know,” Lena whispers. “I know you do, baby.”

***

In the interim of being the shot wife in the hospital and then recovering back into something resembling a working chief executive with a neverending list of things to do—with all the headache in between from Kara’s constant worrying—the IVF rounds were the last thing on their mind.

Right up until the doctor called.

Kara hangs by the kitchen, checking on the roast chicken, fussing over her sauce that was supposed to be simmering if she would just leave it alone for five minutes. In Lena’s mind, it’s the end of a glorious chapter and the start of something terrifying and wonderful.

“Baby,” Lena says at her wife, dumbly.

“Yes?” Kara shifts her eyes, smiling.

“No, no.” Lena shakes her head and places the phone down on the counter top. “Kara, baby.”

“Yeah, what’s up?” Kara’s brow fixes in confusion.

“No, Kara.” Lena inhales and puffs out her cheeks, because her brain cannot process it. “Baby _._ ”

“Are you feeling okay—”

“We’re having a _baby_.” Lena finds the words and gestures everywhere, to the ceiling, to the cabinets, and then to her belly. It makes her laugh boisterously, if only because Kara’s eyes had followed around as though their might be an infant bobbing against the ceiling. “Kara, the last round took. I’m eight weeks pregnant. _Baby_.” She points at her belly, harder.

“Baby!” Kara parrots excitedly, her hands shooting outwards away from her body in sheer joy. “Baby!”

“Baby!” Lena joins in, running and jumping at her.

Kara catches her in both arms, twirling and laughing and crying too. Lena just slips her arms around the back of her neck and clutches as tight as she can, kissing and pecking and weeping and then kissing some more.

“I love you to the fucking moon, Kara Danvers,” Lena means every word.

Kara shuffles to the bedroom with her wife hanging from her shoulders. “I love you beyond that,” she murmurs, kissing along her collarbones and scooping her up higher on her hips.

“I know,” Lena whispers. “I know you do, baby.”

***

She feels like a woman-shaped house, bloated, swollen, leaking, and with the sore lumbar spine to prove she’s eight months into this thing. But, that isn’t to say it’s all bad. Lena curls on the sofa, feet in Kara’s lap, and despite her own protests, maternity leave is wonderful for all the foot rubs.

It’s just the giant thumping basketball under her ribs that causes the problems, and tonight baby is making a fuss in the only way it knows how.

“Are they giving you hell?” Kara offers a sympathetic look—blue eyes glittering as though her wife is still the most beautiful thing she’s laid eyes on—but her lips turn down and her thumbs dig deep into Lena’s arches. “I can run you a hot bath?”

“I feel too hot already,” Lena airs the collar of her t-shirt, complaining but not unhappy. “But yes, your child is currently doing a riverdance recital on top of the scar tissue from the bullet incident.” She pushes a small smile.

“At least they’re not Super,” Kara hums.

Lena felt it was a silly thought process to get tied-up in. They had chosen a human donor, blonde hair, blue eyes, athletic build, and from the pictures he looked as though he could be Kara’s fraternal twin. But, he was definitely absolutely human. Kara had still found ways to worry that maybe her powers would radiate through the blood placental barrier. It was important to her that any kids they had were human, if only so they didn’t feel obligated to follow in her footsteps.

“Kara?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask a morbid question, on the understanding you can tell me if you don’t want to talk about it?”

“Sure,” Kara’s thumbs slowed and stopped rubbing her feet. “What’s on your mind?”

Lena doesn’t know how to say it articulately, and so she just blurts it out. “What’s going to happen when I’m gone? When our children have children, when they get old and grey, when you’re still…” She gestures at her wife who doesn’t seem to age. “You know.”

“I’ll be there,” Kara says instantaneously and without second-thought. “I’ll always be their mother, I’ll always be your wife. It’s as simple as that.”

“I don’t think it is as simple as that,” Lena tries to bring her round to a logical conversation on the topic, sitting upright and solemn-faced. “I have no doubt you will be around to love me and feel me up when I get wrinkly and saggy, I know you will. I just... don’t know that it’s going to be such an easy walk in the park for you.”

“Nobody said easy, I’m just saying it is what it is. Fifty, sixty, seventy, whatever. You’re my wife, and that is that. Just because I look a certain way doesn’t mean I’m not growing old with you, that I’m not going to also be seventy, it just means that I’m probably going to look younger on the outside.”

“I can’t imagine you ever looking a day over thirty.”

“Luckily for you,” Kara pushes forward for a kiss. “You might not ever have to. Come get in the bath with me anyway, I want to get you clean and put you to bed.”

“I’m pregnant, not a puppy.”

“You will always be my puppy, Lena Luthor.” Kara lifts a stern finger. “Besides, I like being useful and you’re too big to shave your legs now.” Her pointed finger stretches outwards into a concessionary palm.

“Fine, okay.” Lena extends her hands so Kara can help her up off the sofa. “I love you — even if you did just say I’m too big.”

“I don’t believe that’s how I worded it, but I love you more.”

“I know,” Lena hums, absentminded. “I know you do, baby.”

***

“It feels like I’m shitting a fucking vacuum cleaner with knives taped to it!”

“That’s the spirit,” Kara says calmly, making herself useful as the world’s best stress reliever. No matter how hard Lena squeezes her hands, she’s strong enough to take it. “You want some—”

“Offer me water, I dare you. I fucking dare you, Kara.” Lena’s eyes were wild and furious, her brow sweating and dappled with strands of jet black hair. “If you offer me water one more time I’m going to jack-knife my legs off of this fucking bed and strangle you to death with my locked thighs.”

“God that would be a way to go.” Kara turns and smiles at the silent nurse trying to disappear into the walls, utterly sincere in her buoyant joy. “She’s the best, isn’t she?”

“She’s the worst,” Lena weeps uncontrollably. “She’s the worse and I hate her.”

“No you don’t,” Kara doesn’t even mind. “You’re just cranky.”

“I’ve been in labour for three days, I just want to go to sleep.”

“Then take the spinal tap?”

“Over my dead body!”

“Hey,” Kara warns and puts some parameters around her wife’s temper. “We don’t use dead and your body in the same sentence. That’s a hard limit.”

“I’m sorry I’m being a monster—”

“No, no we’re not doing that either.” Kara hushes quietly, completely on board with all of this. “You get a free pass, I don’t want to hear it, you do whatever you need to do, this is all on your terms.”

“I love you, right now I hate you because I’m insane, but I do love you.”

“You’re not insane, you just haven’t slept and you’re in the worst pain of your life, but if you were insane I would still love you more.”

“Can you imagine me saying the thing we do? I don’t have the brain space to make love words. I’m too busy ripping my body in half.”

“You’re doing such a good—”

“Don’t.” Lena gave her a pained, tired look. “Don’t fucking do it.”

“Okay baby,” Kara whispers, wiping her forehead with the cool cloth. “You want some water?”

Wrongfooted, she realises her mistake the second it falls out of her mouth. With a vacant, empty emerald stare and silent hanging jaw on the praecipe of yet more angry words, Lena confirms as much.

“You know,” Kara feels herself sweat bullets. “I think I’m going to be quiet now and just speak when spoken to. You’ve got this, baby, I’m right here.”

***

The both of them sleep together beneath the dimmed lights.

The baby books, the doctors, all of it had confirmed that newborns should never sleep with mother—some terrifying unimaginable stuff about accidents that can happen—that it’s simply better and safer for baby to always sleep in the cradle and mommy in the bed.

Despite her own exhaustion, they just look too precious to separate. Kara’s world is simply too whole. Lena is fast asleep in the pillows, her hand settled on the infant’s spine. Kara watches them like a hawk, just in case, but she can’t bring herself to take the baby boy from her wife’s bare chest and put him back in the crib.

The baby curls with his rosy fat cheek pressed to her chest — once in a while he yawns too. He has the same jet black hair, thatches and curls of it. And when he whimpers, Lena’s hand instinctively rubs his back, as though even in her sleep she’s expert and hyper-aware.

“She did such a good job, didn’t she?” Kara glances at the nurse who had come back in for the evening shift, her eyes gleaning over the clipboard on the table.

Kara knows she must look like a fool, but she just can’t help it. Her wife sleeps like some kind of godly creature, peaceful and unproud about the miracle of life she has brought into the world. Their son... Kara doesn’t understand how Lena created something so perfect.

“Good to see you guys got there in the end.” The nurse smiles up from her notes. “Three days is nearly a record, I can’t imagine how you both got through it.”

“No, no. It was all her,” Kara says, glancing back at her wife in utter astoundment. “She’s the strongest, best, toughest woman I know. People think it’s Supergirl but it’s not — it never has been. It’s Lena Luthor. She’s... she’s everything to me, beyond that even.”

“Have you picked a name?”

“Whatever she wants,” Kara just shakes her head. “Lena chooses, she did all the hard work. I just rubbed her feet a couple of times.”

***

In the office, Lena juggles the report in her hands and a cup of coffee that isn’t getting into her system quickly enough. Lena catches glimpses of the news channel, trying to keep up, simultaneously approving the verbal list of her appointments for the day that Jess is reeling off faster than she can keep up with. Charlie was currently teething, sleep was rare and sporadic for everyone in the Luthor-Danvers household.

“Hey!” Kara’s voice draws her entire attention.

Lena turns around, grinning at the unexpected surprise waiting for her by the office door. Kara is a one woman juggling act too, she has Charlie in one arm and a paper bag from the coffee shop in the other, along with her coat, purse, baby bottle, and car-keys on her pinky finger too just for good measure.

“How are you balancing all of that?”

“Precariously. Can you take him? I saw you skipped breakfast so I thought I would bring you some lunch and kisses from your favourite people.” They trade off their son. “Well, excluding Robert Downey Jr — I invited him but he had a thing.” Kara waves it off.

“Hilarious,” Lena eyes her wife with amusement, bouncing and grinning at their tiny toddler. “And why exactly are you not at daycare, huh?”

“We blew daycare off, we’re going to the zoo to have a mental health day and eat an ice cream.” Kara grins.

“Mental health day?” Lena’s ears perk at that. “Is everything okay. With you, I mean?”

“Oh, yeah.” Kara waves dismissively. “Tired, a little frazzled, exactly how you feel all of the time too, I’m sure. I figured a sloth exhibit and a strawberry soft-serve cone would make me feel better.”

“Can I come too?” Lena asks instantaneously.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jesse is already swiping right on the iPad and cancelling all the meetings for the day. It makes Lena exhale a sense of tightness from her body that she did not know she was holding on to, and relief finally swallows her whole when Kara smiles wider than she has in a good while and starts enthusiastically booking a third ticket on her phone.

“Hey, wait a sec.” Lena comes to her senses, bouncing their happy baby in her arms while her brain processes and works. “Do you want me to take him today so you can have some self-care time? If you want to go to the zoo and have an afternoon to yourself, I can take Charlie?”

Kara stops what she’s doing on her phone, her brow furrowed but her lips still smiling. When her eyes lift from the screen, glittering and happy, she has the most heart-eyed, in love expression on her face that one woman could possibly possess. Then, she exhales and pushes forward for a kiss, a real one, which they haven’t had as much time for recently.

“Thank you baby,” Kara whispers. “But you and Charlie are the self care time. You’re the plate, remember?” she reminds.

“And what is he?” Lena grins, bouncing the little one who was still too small to understand true love despite being the product of it.

“He’s the little guy whose going to be on my Instagram later in the matching sloth pyjamas I just bought for us all.” Kara lifts her phone and shows her wife the Amazon same-day delivery confirmation. “Are you driving or am I?”

“We’ll take a driver.” Lena decides, settled and enthusiastic about a complete and luxurious self care day. “And, if you want, maybe this weekend we could get a babysitter and have a date night?”

“A date night?” Kara’s eyes widen.

“A date night.” Lena confirms, rocking their chubby babbler. “I’ll call your sister, Alex loves me more and she owes me a favour anyway. I’ll close the deal and this Saturday? It’s you, me, and a bucket of wine.” She pecks her wife’s exuberant grin.

***

They were going to make the most of their date night.

Lena had booked a private booth at their favourite restaurant, a dress had been picked out, and on the drive back home from Alex’s place, she even made time for a quick detour to the salon for an appointment.

She awakes just after four in the morning, the television still cycling through episodes of the show they had been catching up on. Kara snores in her arms, cheek pressed to her chest, curling and pressing into her side with her glasses crooked on her nose. One episode before they got showered and ready, they had agreed.

When Lena takes the glasses off her nose as gently as she can, it still isn’t gentle enough to avoid waking the troublemaker. Kara sits up all of a sudden, sniffing and blinking, eyes snatching around the barely-lit living room.

“No,” Kara sounds completely devastated when she realises how long they had slept for. “No, no, no, oh no! I was looking forward to date night all week—”

“Relax,” Lena instructs her calmly, refusing to catastrophize. “Do you feel rested, like you finally had a good night’s sleep?”

There’s a long pause.

“I don’t think I’ve slept that well since I was Charlie’s age.” Kara turns and looks at her, utterly astounded.

“Mhm.” Lena kisses her temple. “Your sister texted just after seven last night, she must have known we crashed from the lack of incessant calls asking if our son was still alive.” Lena laughs and feels a little guilty that they didn’t check in. “Alex says she’s keeping him tonight too, her and Maggie are taking him to see the duckies with your mom. I think they’re test-driving him.”

“Test-driving him?” Kara glances, her hands sweeping her hair up into a bouncy blonde ponytail.

“You know,” Lena nudges her hip. “Like when we started volunteering for babysitting duties with Nia and Brainy, just to make sure, just to imagine our lives sans independence.”

“I thought we volunteered to babysit because we’re good people?” It makes Lena laugh out of nowhere— _really laugh_ —laugh so hard her belly hurts and her lungs can’t catch a breath. “What?!” Kara starts giggling too.

“Good people.” Lena wipes a tear from her eye, then stares at her wife in amused disbelief. “You thought I bailed on free tickets to the philharmonic to watch a screaming two year old because I’m a good person? No, baby, sweetie, princess, I was test-driving my life with you.”

“Must have been a good test-drive,” Kara pecks her temple again. “So, what are we doing this weekend?” She crawls back into her wife’s lap, snugging up and over her, hands locked behind her neck so there’s no escape from the kisses.

“Well,” Lena pecks, giggling into the pretty thing gobbling her lips. “I’m going to take you for a nice long walk while sun comes up, then coffee on the way home. We’ll get showered, go get a pedicure—”

“A pedicure?” Kara’s eyes grow wide.

“Mhm. A pedicure,” Lena confirms. “Then, we’re going to get breakfast, wherever you want.”

“Wherever I want?” Kara blinks, utterly giddy. “Hooters?”

“If that’s what you want, Hooters.” Lena nods and slips her hands around the warm skin on the small of her back and hips. “We’ll go eat free samples around Costco, buy as much wholesale-sized toilet paper as you want. We’ll get takeout for dinner, have a bath together, drink that bucket of wine that’s still in the chiller, maybe try for baby number two?”

“I don’t have the parts to give you baby number two.” Kara prods her wife’s chest cheekily. “But you’ve got me sold Lena Luthor.”

“Someone hasn’t checked the bottom drawer in the wardrobe despite incessantly insisting they spring-cleaned last week…”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I wasn’t talking about you trying to give me baby number two. I bought the hardware, I found a strap that fits perfectly.” Lena forms her fingers into a chef’s kiss, then grabs at her wife’s straddled hips. “I don’t think I can magic baby number two inside of you with willpower alone but I’m going to try — multiple times, I hope.” She narrows her eyes, pecking along Kara’s jaw.

“I love you,” Kara rushes it out of her mouth.

“I love you more,” Lena keeps pecking. “And yes, I know that’s your line, but just for today it isn’t.”

***

Lena pounds her hips like it’s an extension of herself, a tangible part of her body that she knows how to use perfectly. Kara sprawls and whimpers, clutching at the pillows, the soft bed sheets, and then finally the strong set of pale hands that slip and entwine with her own.

The busyness of their lives allowed for only quickies and sporadic orgasms, if only because there was a tiny human who awoke all hours of the night, a world constantly on the brink of catastrophe, a long list of priorities above lovemaking because sleep was rare and fraught.

Lena makes up for it like she has a dozen Christmases to catch-up on all at once, fucking her wife like she’s making good on a death wish.

“Lena I’m gonna—” Kara whimpers, pushing up on her knees into a spread doggy position. “Please don’t stop, please, please, please—” Lena wraps her hand around a hung, quivering mouth and stuffs the words back inside.

Her hands slip from her mouth, along her jaw, her neck, gliding and gathering her long blonde hair up into something that can be wound and grabbed. That’s when Lena really lets her have it. Kara slams her hips backwards frantically, gasping and arching and coming undone until they’re just a pile of sweating naked limbs on top of each other.

“We’re making time for this,” Lena whispers as her wife rolls her over on to her spine, out of breath. “We’ll diary it if we have to, we’ll make a monthly appointment at the minimum—”

“Shut up,” Kara chuckles, her voice husky. “I love you, and I want to push your thighs back and show you just how much I love you.” Her eyebrows wiggle as she scoops behind her wife’s knees and cants her hips backwards. “But yes, monthly appointment at the minimum. I forgot how good it feels to do this…” Lena closes her eyes as open mouthed kisses draw down the crease of her thigh.

***

The little boy in front of his birthday cake is too little to be four, that’s the only thought Lena draws, blank-headed while everyone sings, unable to process where the years have gone.

One minute he was in diapers toddling through the living room with one of Kara’s shoes—for some reason he always enjoyed taking one and hiding it in the laundry pile—and despite the inconvenience it caused when her wife needed to rush out, Lena never stopped him, because it was cute, because she felt it was his way of communicating that mama wasn’t allowed to leave them.

They were the very best friends, even now. Charlie sits on his mama’s lap and shows her his new toy race car while the cake is cut up into pieces, explaining the different parts like a boy far older than his age.

“And what is this part?” Kara bounces him on her knees, pointing to the underside.

“The axle,” Charlie says, turning it upside down. “The axle helps turn the wheels and steer the car, Mama.”

“It does?” Kara seems surprised. “And what does this part do?”

As Charlie explains, Kara’s eyes lift over long jet black curls and find Lena at the end of the table. She smiles, then blows a kiss. Lena can’t help herself, despite the group of friends surrounding her, despite Kara’s mother watching, she pretends to catch it and put it in her pocket.

“Disgusting,” Alex notices. “Sickening, repulsive, gross, puppy love—”

“Okay, alright.” Lena concedes shamefully, caught red-handed in the act.

“I remember when you brought him home. Six pounds, fists too big for his body, look at him now.” Alex grins at the little boy sweeping his long hair off his face. “It wouldn’t hurt to give him a haircut, you know that right?”

“I know,” Lena shrugs. “Kara likes it long, which means Charlie likes it long. They’re peas in a pod.”

“They are,” Alex laughs, talking just a bit too loud. “I thought there would be four by now, three at the very least, when are you two—”

“Stop.” Lena instantaneously hushes her sister-in-law. “Not in front of Kara, not today,” she whispers, stifling it quickly.

Alex looks at her strangely.

“It’s nothing to worry about, we’re fine, just please not around Kara — just not today.” Lena glances back at her wife and son, how happy they look, how content she finally is for the first time in weeks. “It’s a long story.”

It wasn’t long, or rather, the complications were mercifully abridged. They were trying—as they had been trying for some two years—and it was Kara’s turn to carry, though she was still determined not to pass on her genes, which meant they were involved in the process together more than they had been before. Lena providing the egg, Kara carrying the pregnancy.

It was nice in someways, feeling like they were both in it together with the morning injections, the cycle tracking, the heaps and layers of inconvenience that went hand-in-hand with IVF. But, when the bloodworks came back positive last month, it felt like the baton had been officially passed and it was now Kara doing all the heavy-lifting.

Lena had no complaints, she was looking forward to being the chief foot-rubber for the next eight months.

But, it just wasn’t meant to be.

***

In the kitchen, the calendar on the refrigerator is finally noticed during an exploration of the top shelf. Lena stops and looks at it, realising the page hasn’t been turned over for two months.

Like a little inside joke, they use big gold star stickers to indicate bedroom appointment requests ahead of time. It was their way of talking about it without worry that Charlie might overhear.

One of them would place the sticker, and after the deed was done, like another little inside joke, they would circle it in red-marker like a completed task.

Two months, and there hadn’t been a single gold sticker let alone a red circle.

Lena smiles and turns the calendar to this month’s page, then neatly places a giant gold sticker on tomorrow’s little box.

“What are you doing, Mommy?” Charlie appears from around the kitchen island with his toy truck in hand.

“Oh, just something.” Lena waves it off, then clocks her wife’s curious blue eyes from the living room sofa. “Who wants ice-cream?”

“I do!” Kara jumps, rushing to scoop her son. “We’re all accounted for, all ready for ice-cream.” It makes the boy giggle.

Lena sticks the calendar to the door of the freezer, just to be certain that Kara cannot miss it. “You scoop, I’m going to the bathroom…” She wiggles her eyebrows at her wife, then nods to the calendar fixed in place.

***

Five months.

Lena keeps fixing the gold stickers despite the lack of red circles, despite the total absence of uptake, she puts one there every Saturday night just in case.

They don’t discuss it. They don’t seem to discuss things as much as they used to at all, Lena thinks. There’s attempts from both sides, sometimes. But it usually leads to arguments, to stifled hissing matches that have to be coordinated around Charlie’s bedtime routine just to be sure he isn’t aware of any turbulence. In Lena’s mind, turbulence feels like the wrong word. They’re just... stalled.

Or maybe just settled in the routine of their marriage, in that ever-growing platonic way that all couples with children seem to grow. They love each other, that much is still palpable.

“Love you,” Kara mumbles into the back of her wife’s shoulderblade while the morning coffee brews. “What does your day look like?”

“Work, meetings, the usual.”

“Mhm.” Kara nods. “What’s for dinner?”

“The usual,” Lena shrugs.

“Mhm.” Kara pecks, then seems to hang there for a moment stalled. “Happy anniversary,” she says mutely, then pads off down the hall to get ready for work.

***

Nine months.

She doesn’t feel as though she even wants to put the gold stickers on the little boxes anymore. It wouldn’t matter even if she did. Kara is apparently blind to them.

***

Twelve months.

Lena doesn’t replace the calendar.

***

A situation arose at work and became somewhat of a problem.

A mountain out of a molehill, really. Lena sits at her desk quietly while her villainous rival talked her through his plans and machinations, gun pointed at her head, doing the terribly kitsch thing of mansplaining his masterplan.

“You’re running late,” Lena closes her eyes.

“Excuse me?” He laughs at the absurdity. “Lena, Lena, _my dearest_ _Lena_.” He tuts, as though she has made quite the mistake. “You realise I have a gun pointed at your—”

“I’m not talking to you,” Lena sighs, bored. “Come on, hurry up, we don’t have all day,” she speaks aloud, as though moving a slowpoke along.

The mighty and proud hero in her costume finally blows through the window and lands on her knee, then stands with her hands on her hips. There was a time when that pose alone would have Lena’s heart in a clutch, her mind spinning, her knees weak and her chest thump-thumping with excitement.

But there is no exchange of words, no explanation or thanks, Lena just stands up from her desk and walks around her wife and the villain shrivelling beneath her blue-eyed stare.

“I have a meeting I’m running late for babe,” Lena puts her coat over her arm, talking and looking for her purse. “Be home for six, I’m making the usual for dinner.”

“Mhm. See you later,” Kara nods.

***

“Don’t.”

Lena snaps around in surprise from the open suitcase on the bed. Kara is hanging by bedroom door, the sleeves of her sweater stretched out and wound up in her tensing hands.

She was supposed to be at work for another two hours, Charlie safe at Alex’s for the weekend, Lena felt that if she didn’t do it now then she never would.

She’s forty-two, and despite her best attempts to grab ahold of time and make it stick, the world is spinning too fast around the sun. It isn’t a problem that Kara can commiserate with. She doesn’t look a day over twenty-eight. Lena is growing ever certain that her wife has all the time in the world, maybe that’s why the quietude in their marriage hasn’t been a pressing issue.

The letter sits on the pillow already written and sealed, a rent deposit placed on a two-bedroom across town, children’s furniture ordered for once they figured out some sort of hand-off agreement in the aftermath. But Kara just stands there, devastated, as though the reality of this was unpredicted and does not make any sense.

“Don’t,” Kara’s voice wobbles and breaks, her head shaking side to side. “Please don’t?”

“Listen to me,” Lena says firmly, her tone clipped and serious. “I love you. I love you more than I have ever loved anything in my life, more than I will ever know how to love again.” She stops, feeling her own throat tighten and shake. “But my life is passing me by, Kara—” She feels the tears, the drips, the desperation to fight through it as she clears her throat and steadies her voice. “I just want to be loved back, before I’m too old, and so I need to do this now before it’s too late.”

The years were starting to creep up on her, or at least she thought so. It had started with a grey hair, then a few feet around the corners of her eyes. Lena knew she looked as though she were in her mid-thirties — but that wouldn’t last forever. A few more years and it would only become more difficult and more heartbreaking for both of them.

“Now you listen to me,” Kara becomes stern, furious almost. “Someone does love you back, more than you could ever believe or understand. I just… I just don’t know how to fix things, Lena, because we don’t talk anymore, and when we do—” She stops, shaking her head, as though preaching to the choir. “I want to fix things, Lena, please do not go, please can we just try to fix the mess we made?”

“You’re saying that because you’re scared of being alone.”

“You’re damn right I’m scared of being alone! I love you, you fucking idiot, I love you and you’re not leaving.” The curse word took Lena offkeel, if only because she couldn’t recall having ever heard Kara utter one before. But she watches her wife storm past her, unpacking things from the suitcase, wiping tears from her eyes. “Put these away,” Kara says, handing off sweaters.

“Kara—”

“No.” Furious blue eyes land on her. “Put them away, Lena.”

“What’s going to happen in five years?” Lena blinks, trying to make her wife see reason despite her own heart breaking. “What’s going to happen when I look older, get older, and you become even less attracted to me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh come on!” Lena rolls her eyes. “I can count on one hand how many times we’ve had sex in the last two years. It’s fine, it’s okay, I anticipated years ago that maybe… you know… the aging thing would start to become a problem. I’m not angry and I don’t blame you for it.”

“We don’t have sex because you never want to!” Kara barks back. “You would put the gold stickers on the calendar, and I would get my hopes up, and then I would try and you—” Kara halts, forcing herself as calm as she can be under the circumstances. “You would push me off, tell me it didn’t feel right, and then you stopped putting the stickers there altogether. And that’s okay, Lena, because if we never had sex again then I would still happily be in this marriage. I can handle you blaming me for what happened, I just can’t handle you not being my wife.”

“Blaming you?” Lena screws her brow, confused. “I have never blamed you for anything—”

“You realise this all started after the miscarriage?” Kara is so quiet and ashamed in the way she says it, almost hiding behind her glasses as she fixes them up her nose. “I’m not saying you were awful, you were loving and supportive, but am I not supposed to draw an obvious conclusion?”

The total shock stop Lena forming a response — but her heart hurts more than it has ever ached before.

“I’m sorry that I let you down, and I’m sorry that I didn’t make sure you had a safe space to say whatever you needed to say about it, but I can do that for you now if that would go some way towards keeping you in this marriage?”

“There is nothing to say about it other than it was not your fault, Kara.” Lena blinks, completely at a loss from the working-theory her wife had lived with. “Kara, _none of that was your fault_. I’m, I’m so sorry that you ever thought for a second that it was.”

“If you’re saying that’s not the reason things got weird, and I’m saying that you getting older isn’t the reason either. Then…” She clutches at the air, glancing around the room, completely flustered and at a loss. “Then what is the reason?”

Lena closes her eyes. “We just stopped listening,” she admits, ashamed of herself. “I stopped listening a long time ago, and I stopped asking too.”

“Could we—could we just start there and try to listen to each other again?” Kara pleads. “Maybe self care isn’t just ice cream or brushing our problems under the rug. Maybe we go to therapy?”

“Okay,” Lena says, but she still gently lays the small pile of sweaters back inside the suitcase. “We’ll go to therapy and we will work on our marriage, but…” She reaches out and clasps one of her wife’s hands. “I need to go for a little while. Just for us to have some breathing room. It’s not a break, it’s not a separation, it’s just me asking for some time to clear my head and think.”

“Okay,” Kara whispers back, clutching Lena’s fingers tight. “Alright, if that’s what you need, so long as it’s not permanent.”

“I love you. It’s not permanent, it’s just for a little while.”

“I love you more.”

“I know,” Lena whispers, pecking her wife’s cheek. “I know you do, baby.”

***

Five hours later, Kara’s ears detect the sound of creaky suitcase wheels dragging up the porch steps. The key rattles in the lock, shoes are kicked off, the smell of Chinese food hits her, but she doesn’t dare turn around in fear that it’s just Alex, that her heart will be utterly broken and her hopes crushed.

“Please tell me it’s you?”

“It’s me,” Lena confirms. “I had my breathing space, I breathed, it turns out that I can’t bare to be without you. I want to come home now, please.”

“Five hours is a very short separation,” Kara turns and finally looks at her.

“Too long, I think.” Lena walks over. “I set up an appointment for us to start seeing a counsellor. I have Chinese food and wine, do you think maybe we could practice the talking and listening thing? I’ve had some time to think and I’ve not been very emotionally present for you and I would like to start there and change that.”

Kara nods slowly. “Okay baby,” she whispers.“I want to do better too. But, would it be okay if we eat some food and get drunk first? You wouldn’t believe the day I’m having.” She laughs despite the tears, laughs despite the present tumultuousness of their marriage.

***

In the shower, they touch each other like love-sick teenagers who have never seen a woman before. They fumble, giggling, kissing one another underneath the steaming water with a leg propped here and there, fingers exploring and working each other gently. It’s new, and it’s lovely, and when they kiss it feels like the first time all over again.

The therapist told them to wait until they simply couldn’t wait anymore — and the pay-off was absolutely worth it.

“You are so beautiful,” Kara says, her voice tight and serious. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life.” She nips her wife’s ear, kisses her collarbone, slips her fingers deeper and draws deep moans out of her chest. “This feels so fucking good with you, so right, so perfect.”

“Bedroom,” Lena nods to the door, slipping her wet arms around the back of Kara’s neck. “Bedroom, now.”

***

In her office there is her desk, a small meeting table, and then an engineering workbench of sorts that sits totally at odds with the neat monochrome decor of the room. To her, it’s the most important thing in the building these days, so important that she wants it close by so she’s always within reach if Charlie needs help with something.

“Mom?” Charlie calls over his shoulder. “Are you busy?”

“Nope,” Lena lies, clicking out of the patents that needed to be perfected and sent-off before the end of the day. “What do you need, kiddo?”

“I think I need to connect these wires to these parts but I don’t know if it will cause an explosion.” Her son’s words add urgency.

“Okay, well, let’s just take a look…” Lena hurries and cranes over the workbench. “Yep, that right there is big bang territory. What you need to do—”

The sound of the window pane shattering snaps both of their heads around. Kara lands on a crouched knee, then stands mighty and proud. Lena closes her eyes and can’t help but smirk, despite the third blown window this month, despite the cost of repairing it, the sight of her wife doing the thing never gets old or tired.

“False alarm,” Lena confirms. “You don’t have to come over every time you detect a slight wobble in the radiation emittance.”

“My teenage son and mad scientist wife are currently playing with fusion energy for the school science fair, I absolutely have to come over every time it looks a little hairy.” Kara lifts her brows at them both. “Sorry about the window,” she says in afterthought.

“Pete left spares just in case, I’ll call maintenance.”

“What are you working on, Charlie?” Kara skips over and takes a look. “Oh, that looks very… very dangerous and cool, dangerous, very dangerous, but you know, cool?” Kara tries to be calm, nodding a bit too hard.

“Just me and Mom stuff,” he shrugs, brushing it off as though it was too complex to even try and explain.

“Cool. Cool. _Very cool_ ,” Kara does her best not to be offended. “I remember when you were four and you would at least _try_ to explain the science-y engineering things that you liked…”

“I can give you the cover notes over lunch now that you’re here?” Lena tries to soothe her wife’s hurt ego that the favouritism had somewhat shifted recently. “Lunch date? I’ll take you to the new sushi place on third and we can get coffee on the way back, maybe skip out on work altogether and run away to the zoo?”

“Charlie,” Kara leans in towards their son, ruffling his short curly hair. “One day, when you’re thirty and I can’t make you live at home with us anymore, find yourself a wife who regularly asks you to run away to the zoo with her. Promise me that?”

“Whatever you say,” Charlie rolls his eyes, but his smile is loving and amused. “Oh, can you pick me up after school on Thursday?”

“Are you not sleeping over at Ethan’s?” Kara furrows.

“His dads are getting a divorce, he found out yesterday.” The words take Kara and Lena both by surprise. “I guess they’re not soulmates like you two are,” their son shrugs innocently.

There had been play dates when the boys were still babies at the same daycare, which turned into couple’s coffee dates, then dinner at each other’s houses while the boys played together upstairs. Jonathan and Andy had been their friends for the last fourteen years. They seemed so in love, so perfectly matched just like Kara and Lena felt they were for one another.

The two of them share a look: uncomfortable and unsure why they both feel so uncomfortable from the news.

“Well I’m taking your mother for lunch,” Lena clears her throat and puts the safety lock on the parts of Charlie’s project that could cause problems for the fire brigade. “You’re the chief until I get back, be a good boy, do not blow anything up.” She kisses her son on the cheek.

Outside, walking and holding hands, neither of them speak about it or want to mention it first. She can tell it’s on Kara’s mind too. Lena brings it up while they wait for their food in the restaurant, trying to be casual and light about it.

“So, Jonathan and Andy. Do you think we should call them, send some flowers over or something?” Lena asks over the dessert menu.

“Flowers?” Kara can’t help but smirk. “Nobody died, baby. I think the phone call would be more appropriate, maybe let them know Ethan is always welcome to stay at our place for sleepovers?”

“I can’t help but feel like…” Lena didn’t even know what to say, and so she just gestured awkwardly with her hands. “You know. I know you know.”

“That it could have been us a few years ago?” Kara slips her hands over the table and takes her wife’s knuckles. “But it’s not, and we fixed our issues, and now we’re here eating sushi. We’re okay, unless there’s something making you feel not okay?”

“No, no. I just feel like I should talk to Charlie maybe, about the thing he said.”

“Which thing?”

“The soulmate thing.”

“You don’t think we’re soulmates?” Kara’s eyes widen.

“No, no baby, of course we are,” Lena states the obvious. “Just, you know, that it isn’t enough to feel like someone is your perfect person… that it takes a lot of work, a lot of patience, a lot of willingness. He’s not going to be fourteen forever, I want him to be an emotionally mature, decent, kind man one day.”

“Baby,” Kara whispers, her eyes crinkling slightly with her smile. “You’re panicking because you’re his mommy and you always will be, but I promise he’s a good boy. Just look at how gentleman-ly he is with Emma,” Kara says too much and doesn’t realise.

“Gentleman-ly with Emma?” Lena lifts a brow.

“Oh, a perfect gentleman babe.” Kara nods. “He walks her home, and I’ve spoken to her mother and they always leave the bedroom door open when he’s over there studying… _oh my god_.” Kara finally catches herself, snatching her hands to cover her mouth. “Oh no.”

“He did not tell me he has a girlfriend.” Lena feels the blood rush through her all at once, but for appearances sake she tries to stay calm and reasonably volumed. “I thought Emma was his study buddy?”

“She is! She is a study buddy.” Kara brushes it under the rug. “Don’t—don’t listen to me. I don’t know what I’m talking about.” She chuckles uncomfortably, a terrible liar if ever Lena saw one.

“Spill the beans, Kara Danvers.”

“Okay, fine, but to be clear…” She leans forward and drops her tone. “He hasn’t said anything explicitly about it to me. I’ve just, I’ve just been tailing him.”

“You run a covert operation on our fourteen year old son?”

“I’m a neurotic mother who can fly and see through walls, what do you think?” Kara doesn’t skip a beat. “For the record, I have camped outside her house, and they do very much leave room for Jesus,” Kara whispers and shoves a potsticker in her mouth.

***

Lena’s fiftieth birthday came without reservation or reluctance about the milestone. There were a few more grey hairs, a few more wrinkles, her body had started to soften, and none of it was enough to doubt that she was beautiful. How could she ever doubt it? Not when her wife looks at her the way she does.

“I cannot wait to help you out of this tonight,” Kara whispers against her ear while their friends and family drink and socialise. “We’re not getting out of bed for the weekend, the week, the month, the—”

“Guys,” Charlie clears his throat, disturbing them out of nowhere. “This is Emma. The Emma that I was telling you both about.” He gives them the look to play it cool.

“Oh, Emma! _Girlfriend Emma_!” Lena’s eyes became wide and every muscle stiffens up and contracts all at once. “Emma, it’s so nice to meet you.” She forces herself to offer a handshake.

In her brain, she wants to pull the pretty girl in to her kill-zone by the wrist, teeth gritted, throat rocking, angry and without cause. _If you hurt my precious little boy, if you break his heart, I will fire you into the fucking sun._

“It’s nice to meet you both,” Emma says, fussing with her copper-coloured hair, totally shy as she stands in front of two tightly wound mothers. “I actually did a project on you when I was in fourth-grade, you know, about who our favourite female heroes were. It’s really an honour to meet you.” Emma blushes and doesn’t seem to know where to look.

“Well she is very super, and very heroic,” Lena glances at her wife with the most tender expression. “Your respect was not misplaced, I can say with some—”

“Oh, I, er.” Emma scratches her temple. “I actually wrote it about you, Mrs Luthor.” It makes Lena turn her head so quickly that she pulls her neck out. “Are you okay?” Emma panics at the doubled-over woman in front of her.

“Fine, fine, completely fine.” Lena gives the thumbs up. “You… you wrote your fourth grade project about me?” She peers up at the teenager, clutching the side of her agonised neck.

“Oh yes, Mrs Luthor, I read a magazine article about all the nano-technology you pioneered. It really got me interested in the STEM field—”

“I like this girl,” Lena tells her son, nodding enthusiastically despite the pinched nerves, pointing at his girlfriend. “I like her very much and you have my blessing to marry her.”

“Okay, Mom, remember how we talked about you being cool and not, you know, weird?” Charlie warns his mother. “We’re fifteen, nobody is getting married.”

“But you can, if you want to, when you’re older.” Lena leans towards the girl she has picked to be her daughter-in-law. “Have you thought about where you want to go to school, Emma?”

“MIT, Mrs Luthor.” Emma laughs slightly, relaxed and comfortable now. “I’m hoping to get a scholarship, my grades are there, I just need to keep it that way.”

“I like her,” Lena says it again, just to be sure all stakeholders in the conversation are aware. “I like her a lot, Charlie, when is she coming over for dinner?”

“Okay Lena,” Kara chuckles and pats her forearm. “Why don’t we get you an ice pack for your neck and leave the kids to it?”

“Emma, if ever you want to come by the office or talk about a summer internship you’re more than welcome to do that. I can always write a letter of recommendation to the dean at MIT, he’s a _very close_ family friend—”

“Lena, baby,” Kara cuts her off, dropping her voice to a quiet volume. “Ice pack, now please, before you throw your back out too with all the showboating you’re doing, honey.”

***

Kara’s fiftieth birthday is the next big milestone.

She still doesn’t look a day over thirty, but the fact she can never seem to find her car keys let’s Lena know that they are very much equal-footed in the age department.

When she laughs, Lena feels her heart clutch just as tightly as she has for the last twenty years. Thirty, fourty, fifty, the years do not matter anymore. Lena feels seen and adored, and she sees and adores her wife in tandem.

The woman of the hour laughs at the dining room table, blowing out her candles and beckoning for her wife to come sit in her lap.

“There’s my pretty girl,” Kara husks, tucking a rope of jet black hair behind Lena’s ear. “Did you check the calendar this morning?”

“Mhm, I did. You’re replacing the entire pack of gold stickers you used by the way.”

“Tomorrow’s problem.” Kara shrugs and kisses her.

***

“It’s going to be okay,” Kara rubs her shuddering spine. “It’s going to be alright, sweetie.”

“It’s not going to be alright.”

“He’s a big boy. It’s time for college, he will be home in a few weeks like he never left.”

“I hate this with every fibre of my being, Kara.”

“I know,” Kara hushes. “I know you do but…”

“But what?” Lena grows frustrated. “What could you possibly say to make this better?”

“Remember what it was like before he was born? When we used to be able to have sex in the living room and walk around naked just because we felt like it?”

Slowly, Lena dries her eyes.

“Well,” Lena says, entirely soothed. “Emma is going to MIT with him, I suppose. She’ll make sure he calls every week.”

“See?” Kara grins. “Your surrogate daughter is going to be right there reminding him to wash his hands before dinner and call his mother before bedtime. There is nothing for you to worry about.”

“It’s easy for you to say, you can fly.”

“You have a corporate jet at your disposal, baby, so can you.”

***

“Holy shit!” Lena stares.

“What?” Kara blinks with a mouthful of dry cereal, naked in the kitchen and startled. “Is it a spider? Do I have a spider on me? Lena, if there’s a spider on me get it off—”

“No, no.” Lena lifts her hands to reassure the flapper, then she steps forward to smooth fingers through her wife’s scalp and find the single solitary strand she just noticed. “Kara, look.” She plucks and shows it, grinning. “A grey hair.”

“A grey hair...” Kara’s eyes are equally shocked, excited and thrilled by it. “Quick, let’s make a wish and blow on it!”

“You’re hysterical,” Lena rolls her eyes, dropping it in the sink and swiping her fingers. “It suites you though, this is a good way to start the day, fifty-seven and you finally got your first one.”

“Do I look older yet?” Kara sounds hopeful. “Silvering, soft, distinguished and maybe a heck of a fox?”

“Not yet,” Lena confirms the worst. “Still thirty, but the grey hair is a comfort that you’re not entirely immune to time. Do I look older yet?” Lena jokes, because of course she does.

“You look perfect, and beautiful, and oh so wonderfully mine.” Kara leans forward and pecks her lips, then kisses her a little bit more. “Oh, by the way, what time do I need to pick Charlie up from the airport?” Kara stuffs more dried cereal in her mouth.

“What?” Lena furrows her brow in confusion.

“Charlie,” Kara repeats herself. “What time does his flight get in tonight?”

“Babe,” Lena blinks. “Charlie is at home?”

“Oh when did he get here?” Kara damn near throws the cereal box to cover her breasts and curves. “Jesus, Lena, did you not think to tell me to put a robe on?”

Lena feels the concern swell in her chest, the formation of dread knotting and knitting itself around her ribcage.

“Kara, Charlie is at _home_ — he is with Emma and the baby across town.”

Kara stands there vacantly for a moment, it’s as if she’s slowly and peacefully awoken from a strange dream, her eyes darting slightly. Then, as though it was nothing, she shakes her blonde head and shovels another handful of charms into her mouth.

“Sorry, sorry.” Kara waves it off dismissively. “I’m still half-asleep.” She sighs.

Instinctively, Lena laughs and brushes it off too. Of course Kara was a little tired. It had to be that. It absolutely _had_ to be that.

Lena needed it to be just that.

The alternative was incomprehensible.

***

“Wake up,” Kara nudges her.

“Hmm?” Lena stirs slightly, bleary-eyed. “Jesus, babe, what time is it?”

“It’s time to wake up,” Kara pushes forward, pecking and kissing her neck in a fit of giggles. “I have a surprise for you.”

“It’s four in the morning, it better be a good surprise.”

“Oh, it is.”

In fairness to Kara, it was a lovely surprise once Lena found her marbles and got herself out of bed. The years were piling on top of them, and it was easy to forget things that had once been important — their anniversary for example.

They had two granddaughters, birthdays for the entire family to organise, a world that still needed saving—and it reassured Lena to no end that the nomenclature had long since changed and Kara was now _Superwoman_ —she looked a woman of thirty after all, and she acted her real age of sixty with all the wisdom and life experience to boot. It was right that she wasn’t _girl_ anymore. Kara had grown into bigger paws.

The anniversary celebrations had dropped off in recent years somewhat, except for the big ones. But, Kara remembered today. Thirty-three years of marriage, still kicking, still going strong. It fills Lena with exuberance that her fears were unfounded. Kara had planned an entire date day, just like the one they shared when they accidentally fell asleep too early in the living room and made an entire day of all the things they had taken for granted before they had a baby.

The Costco aisles were shuffled down, the toilet paper purchased and made to fit in the trunk. Then, Hooters, pedicures, the works. Kara remembered every detail, every moment of it better than Lena ever could.

But, Lena still knows the truth despite telling herself otherwise. Something isn’t right. Her wife is starting to forget moments that are not supposed to be forgotten, but Kara will not hear of it or see the doctor like she keeps desperately suggesting.

For now, today is a good, wonderful, perfect day. Lena clings to it and savours every single second like it might be the last perfect day for another little while.

***

“Mom?” Charlie is already waiting in her office, smiling and yet clearly concerned about something. “Can we talk?”

For a moment, Lena just smiles and looks at him. A few more years and this will be his business to run, she thinks. The office suites him, the chair too, he’s nearly thirty now and it’s strange having a son who looks about the same age as her wife — but he’s a good boy, the absolute best of their accomplishments, and he knows as much too.

“We can always talk,” Lena breezes around, her purse hung on the coat rack, her laptop placed on the meeting table. “What’s on your mind?”

“Mama.”

“No,” Lena whispers tightly through her smile. “We can talk about anything, but we cannot talk about that.” She shakes her head.

“Mom, I woke up this morning and Mama let herself in the house with the spare key. She nearly gave Emma a heart attack — the girls thought somebody had broken into the house.”

“Oh!” Lena screws her brow and tries to think of an excuse for her wife. “She—she probably went over to drop some mail. Seriously, Charlie, you still haven’t changed your address with the bank. The letters just pile up and pile up around the place.” The blame is instantly pushed and put back on him.

“Mom,” Charlie whispers calmly, trying to make her see reason on the gentlest terms possible. “Mama thought we were on vacation and she had to come over to water the plants. We haven’t taken a vacation in three years and I find it concerning that an all-powerful god who is clearly in cognitive decline is wandering around without any checks or balances in place.”

“Listen to me,” Lena feels her throat tighten, her entire body refusing this conversation and the inevitable place it was heading. “She looks like a young woman, and she isn’t. Your mother is forgetful because she’s sixty and that’s what happens when you get older. I don’t want to have this conversation, Charlie, because I know what you’re going to ask and I don’t have answers.”

“Mom, I understand how hard this must be for you, but I think we need to try and figure out some solutions, taking her to a doctor first and foremost?” He sits there, a put together and intelligent man in his own right now. “I mean what happens when you’re gone, Mom? What happens when I’m gone, when the girls are gone—”

“Shut up! Don’t you dare!” Lena snaps at her son. “Do you not think I keep myself awake, sick with worry, utterly consumed with the thought!” It explodes out of her for the very first time, and she instantly regrets not being able to shove her most private secrets back inside her mouth. “Christ I cannot get her to see a damn neurologist, Charlie! And you’re asking me what’s going to happen eighty years from now?”

“I will not leave my mother all alone on this planet like a mad lonely god with no one to take care of her.” Charlie is adamant. “Shame on you for sticking your head in the sand and pretending none of this is happening! She has dementia, Mom, and you don’t need a fucking neurologist to tell you that!” He looks his mother up and down, almost disgusted by it.

Lena stops and feels the weight of those words sit on top of her. Charlie is right, beautiful gentle scared mother’s boy, always wanting to keep them safe despite Kara’s best intentions that he would never face such burdens. It breaks Lena’s heart, but she knows one solution, for now at least.

“I’ll retire.” Charlie looks utterly surprised. “Your mother is better when she’s with me, she’s more tethered. I’ll always keep her safe, Charlie, it was always the plan. I just… I just didn’t think we were at this place yet.”

“And after,” he whispers, scared and unable to process it. “What about when you’re… _you know_?” He doesn’t want to be anymore morbid than they’re already being.

“One day at a time.”

One day at a time is really all they have.

***

“I better get down there,” Kara stands pensively in front of the television.

Fuck, Lena clutches the mug of coffee from where she stands in the kitchen. Every time she gets comfortable thinking all of the live news channels are blocked—a perfectly good and peaceful day of reporting replaying in the background from the archive she has collated over the last two years—something goes and throws a spanner in the works.

“What is it this time?” Lena tries to sound unconcerned.

“Nothing too world-ending,” Kara is nondescript. “It looks like a fire, maybe some kind of explosion?”

When Lena turns, her wife is already in her blue and red costume ready to fly away. It forces her to do the thing—and she hates having to do it—it feels invasive and unethical on numerous levels. If being married to a god has taught her one thing, it’s that one must never _play_ god.

Lena feels that she has no choice, and so she clicks the emergency button that lives in her pocket.

Instantaneously, their young son forms from nanotech particles exactly as he was when he was three years old. He appears like a ghost of the past right there in the living room, perfectly cloned from Charlie’s subconscious and memories too.

Charlie developed the nano-technology himself as a safety measure while he worked on something more expansive. The nanotechnology wasn’t just a hologram, it was an echo, a tiny slither of alive consciousness trapped in a looking glass, repeating his memory loop whenever Lena called upon him.

Little Charlie could interact, could feel, could express himself as though he were human, and he could also be turned on and off at whim as easily as the coffee percolator. For now, he only possesses one core memory.

It’s a memory that makes Lena horrifically guilty every time she makes this living, feeling thing repeat it.

“Mama!” The little boy wails, inconsolable and distraught.

“Charlie?” Kara concerns herself only with the little boy in the living room, entirely confused from the whiplash but instinctive in her mothering. “What’s wrong?”

He lifts his small chubby arm, showing her the nasty cut from a tumble that had occurred some thirty years ago. It was a memory that always drew a strong emotional reaction from Kara — strong enough that she usually forgot whatever it was she had been doing.

“Oh that looks deep,” Kara decides to let the city burn instead. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up and fix the boo-boo.” She frets and worries her entire way to the bathroom.

Lena hates all of this, forcing back the tears as she processes the thoughts. She feels like she’s playing god, that it’s cruel to make a feeling thing suffer for their benefit with his permanent little dungarees and the cut to his hand, most of all, she feels that she’s betraying her wife’s trust on every imaginable level.

She just doesn’t feel she has better choices she can make.

***

When Lena turns from the bookshelf and catches the blue eyes peering at her, it’s as though she’s being looked upon by a total stranger. Her wife stares at her vacantly, frightened almost. Kara is still so soft featured, so beautiful, as though she isn’t a single day over thirty and the best is still to come.

“Who are you?” Kara’s voice is quiet, scared almost.

Lena feels her heart shatter on that single tiny question.

They had finally crossed that line.

***

“Someone who loves you very much, Kara.” The old woman pushes a kind smile in her direction, and Kara feels so much better as soon as the words are said. “Would you like something to eat?”

Kara feels confused, like she’s in a dream and some parts make sense and others… not so much. But the old woman keeps smiling, and Kara feels safe despite not being sure of the facts. She knows this woman, she isn’t sure where from, but she feels safe now and the feeling doesn’t leave.

“Can I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”

“I’ll even let you have two.”

“Are you crying?” Kara notices.

“No baby, I’m not crying, it’s just my eyes trying to look busy.”

The next thing Kara knows, Charlie is tearing and running into the room, giddy and excited with his brand new car in his hand. Kara remembers perfectly where she is. A sense of relief washes over her entirely. How could she have ever forgotten?

“Mama, this part right here is the axle.” Charlie lifts it up to her, demonstrating with his little careful fingers. “Do you know what the axle does?”

“It steers the car,” Kara whispers back.

“Will you come play with me?”

“Mhm.” Kara lets him take her by the hand. “I’d like that, Charlie.”

***

“Lena,” Kara whispers from the pillow, suddenly awake and certain her wife is too despite the pitch-black room. “I’m—I’m forgetting things, aren’t I?”

There’s a long pause.

“Yeah baby,” Lena confirms softly. “But you don’t have to be scared because you’re home with me, and you’re safe, and this is where you’re going to stay.”

“How old are we Lena?”

“Don’t worry about that.” A hand smoothes over Kara’s belly. “Fifty, sixty, seventy, none of it matters. You’re my forever girl, remember?”

“Lena,” Kara feels as though there isn’t enough time, as though she’s awake and aware but she might not be for long. “Lena promise me—”

“I know what you’re going to ask me to do,” Lena interrupts. “I know because you ask me the same thing every time we do this.” That part makes Kara panic because maybe she isn’t as lucid as she thinks. “I’m not going to do it, Kara, but I promise you I will find a solution. A real one.”

“Lena?”

“Yeah baby?”

“I love you.” Kara pecks her cheek, her jaw, her neck, she does it urgent and fast, as though there isn’t enough time. “I love you, I love you, a thousand times I love you, thank you for my life, thank you for it all, I love you.”

“It’s okay, it’s alright,” Lena whispers back. “I love you, baby.”

“I love you more.”

“I know,” Lena laughs all of a sudden, as though she is so happy to hear those words. “Oh I know you do, baby, I never doubted it.”

***

In Charlie’s office—the top floor executive office that used to be her own office—it’s as though she’s looking directly into a mirror that only knows how to reflect who she once was some forty years ago.

“It’s all finished, Mom.” Charlie looks at his mother cautiously, appraising her expressions and feelings. “I want you to meet Lena Luthor,” he introduces her to the _thing_. “I want you to meet... _you_.”

“You think I’m going to let this coffee percolator replace me, Charlie?”

“I’m—I’m not a robot, Lena,” It replies instinctively. “I’m _you_. I am Lena Luthor in every sense of the word too, all of the same history, all of the same thought pathways.”

“No, I am me,” Lena tells the thing sternly. “You are _It_.”

“No,” It exhales again camly, but somewhat palpably frustrated. “We are both Lena Luthor.”

“Charlie, turn your pet coffee machine off and come talk to your mother for a second.” Lena shuffles to the meeting table, beyond done with all of this.

“Mom do you understand what I’m trying to explain?” Charlie follows. “She isn’t a robot, she isn’t programming, she is—”

“Charles, I have three degrees, I won a Turing Prize, and I built the company that you’re currently showboating in. Yes, I understand the science and engineering perfectly well, I just.” Lena stops, swallowing hard. “We’re just not here yet, we’re not at the place where this is necessary. Your mother still has good days.”

The nanotech clone stares for a moment, waiting and thinking, as though unsure of what to say but feels as though she should say something. Unspoken and wordless, it is still far too human and expressive for Lena to make rational sense of.

It is her name now, Lena decides.

_It._

“Lena, I love her too,” It reasons. “You think I’m just feedback loops, a photo album she can understand, tiny microscopic pieces of nanotech floating around.” It gestures around the room with wiggling hands that have all the same freckles that she does, exasperated and identical in her body-language. “I think, I feel, I do not age the way you age, and I remember more of your life than you do,” It calmly explains. “Please let me help, not because it’s some sort of programming protocol — let me help if only because I love her just as much as you do.”

Lena sits there and feels like a woman out of her own time, a woman out of her own life with no context or ability to make sense of this. She imagines maybe this is how Kara feels, most days.

Charlie’s nanotech project had come along further than she thought she would ever live to see. He had created perfect copies of their family: living, feeling, cybernetic and self-aware of their nature. They would never age, and they had the ability to shift in form to match whatever point in time Kara thought she was living in.

“She’ll know you’re not me,” Lena says it certainly, trying to comfort herself more than anything.

It seemed to shimmer for a moment, and then instantaneously and smooth as liquid, she shifted into the form of the seventy-five year old body that Lena currently possessed.

“She’ll never be lonely or scared, and she will be safe for as long as she lives — however long that might be.” It says, utterly sincere, her voice a little more husky and aged. “I can control her perception field, I can help her live a meaningful and happy life. A good life worth having, Lena.”

It demonstrated exactly what she meant, using her perception filtering to shift the room around them into a meadowy field, a restaurant, the church where they were married, and then finally an airy skyline of skyscrapers and a city just before dusk.

Lena breathes it all in and glances around, astounded. She understands that she hasn’t moved, that she is still in her old office, but the wind and the sounds feel as real as anything she has felt before, as though she is floating high above National City.

The windows of the skyscrapers even glitter with daylight, the street below packed with tiny cars hurrying around, and for the first time in her life, Lena finally sees the view that Kara has saw every time she took off like a bird.

“Charlie,” Lena clears her throat, blinking and reminding herself this isn’t real. “Please turn _It_ off, just for a second.”

“Would you mind giving us a moment?” Charlie drops his voice and leans towards It.

It just nods and slowly dissipates into tiny glittering particles. Still here, just not formed. Reality comes back to them gently, liquidy and without juxtaposition, Lena finds herself in the office of the L-Corp building once more — but it isn’t a stark transition, it’s entirely peaceful.

Charlie sighs. “Mom, I know this is scary for you.”

“Will your mother be safe? That’s… that’s the first thing.”

“For the rest of her life, yes she will be safe,” he’s utterly certain.

Lena pauses and nods, swallowing back the tears of pre-grief.

“Will—” Lena stops, her throat too tight, but she coughs slightly despite her tears and reclaims herself. “Will she feel loved? That’s the second thing.”

“These copies of me and you? They are every moment of us, every tiny bit of our lives that we can’t even remember.” Charlie takes his mother’s hands. “They are more, and they are _higher_.”

“We’ll get to how impressed I am that you managed to create a new lifeform later on...” Lena circles back to her concerns. “But, will your mother feel _loved_? That’s… that’s what I care about.”

A little boy appears beside Lena out of nothing. He’s the exact picture of Charlie when he was a baby-faced boy, and it dawns on Lena that for all intents and purposes it very much is her son — just in a different existential form, at least.

“Yeah Mommy,” the little boy promises, cherub-cheeked and smiling softly. “Mama will feel loved, I promise I’ll take good care of her.”

“Thanks,” Lena nods, barely resisting the urge to ruffle his jet black floppy curls. “I just needed to hear that.”

***

The Luthor Manor had sat for years without occupancy.

It was too big, too grand and stately, too out in the middle of nowhere for them to have wanted to live there. It was tucked away from everything with miles of land still within the property boundary. It would make a perfect home for a kind-hearted godlet to live out her days as peacefully and meaningfully as possible, they all agreed as much.

The necessary outfitting and renovations took a year to complete. Lena made every moment with her wife before the big move count. Every day became important, every second of that time was special, and in the brief moments that Kara knew who she was… Lena savoured it joyfully and felt unresentful.

The country property was now ready and waiting. Whenever Lena was ready, Charlie had promised there would be no rushing.

“Lena?” Kara wanders out of the bedroom and down the hall, totally unsure of herself. “Excuse me, have you seen my wife?” They briefly lock eyes.

“Lena, Lena. Now where did she get to…” Lena looks around, aware Kara struggles to recognise her at this age anymore. “I think she just went out to grab something? Do you want to sit down and I’ll make you a sandwich while you wait for her?”

“Yes please.” Kara nods, greyish and confused. “I’m worried about her.”

“Don’t be worried about her.”

“You haven’t met her,” Kara whispers and sits at the counter. “She got shot once and didn’t tell me, being an idiot is kind of her thing.” It makes Lena snort.

There’s a quiet pause, a small beat while the sandwich is made, the silence lasts for no more than a few more seconds.

“Where is Lena?” Kara asks again. “Have you seen my wife, Lena?”

“Lena’s coming, don’t worry.” Lena gives a small nod of approval for Itsy to take over. “In fact, I think I hear your wife’s car outside.” The words seem to soothe the worrier.

The two last months had been an integration period of sorts, Itsy around their home, always discretely there in her shapeless form just in case Lena needed a hand. Mainly, it was an opportunity for Lena to understand how Kara would respond after the move.

Kara seemed brighter and more alert than she had in over a decade. Kara remembered things, was able to focus and hold on to conversations again. The sound of her laughter and sight of her grins had been so sorely missed, but Lena had heard and seen it more in the last eight weeks than she had in at least twelve years.

Itsy firmly tethered Kara to some sense of stable reality. Itsy did it for the same reason Lena had always done it. Not obligation, not responsibility, just because they loved her, because she was their wife. They were both Lena Luthor after all. It was just that one of them had a nickname for distinction’s sake — plus, the whole immortality and shapeshifting thing going on too.

“I’m here! I’m here, sorry!” Itsy appears and closes the front door, grocery bags in her arms, the exact picture of Lena in her thirties. “Kara can you put these away? Sorry for rushing out this morning, you were asleep and I didn’t want to wake you.” She hands over the bags and gives Kara tasks that she’s capable of doing.

“Lena,” Kara’s eyes light up and the colour seems to come back to her all at once. “I was starting to worry.” She exhales the tension from her body.

“She says, as though I have been off to war?” Itsy laughs slightly, heart-eyed with an emerald stare that has nothing but Kara in her sights. “Are you putting the groceries away or are we just going to stand here like two idiots in love?”

“Idiots in love sounds much nicer,” Kara murmurs. “Oh! Did you pick up the birthday cake by the way?”

“Of course I did.” Itsy scoffs.

From the kitchen, where Lena is still making a sandwich in some attempt at being useful, she watches a perception filter of birthday decorations slowly appear around the house. It’s gentle on the eyes, unstark, as though they had simply been there the entire time.

Kara doesn’t notice the shift — she never does and she never will. It’s lovely that she isn’t caught off guard by her surroundings anymore, Lena thinks. The world, for Kara, always makes sense now.

Itsy makes sure of it.

“Good save,” Lena mouths at her copy, nodding at the balloons and banners that bob and shift ever so slightly with the rhythm of the air-conditioning.

Itsy just winks at Lena as though to say, _I try my best._

“Oh, excuse me?” Kara smiles kindly at the apparent stranger stood in her kitchen making sandwiches. “We know each other, I think?” She walks over, more colourful and settled.

“Oh yes, I think we’ve met, sure.” Lena smiles back.

“We know each other very well, don’t we?” Kara doesn’t take her eyes away or lose focus like she normally does. “You’re always around when I feel scared, I think. It makes me feel so much better when you’re around. You won’t go anywhere, will you?”

“I’ll always be around,” Lena promises, her hand slipping gently over Kara’s knuckles. “I love you very much.”

“I love you more,” Kara repeats it from muscle-memory.

“I know,” Lena whispers and hopes for some symptom of recognition. “I know you do—” Kara draws a breath too big for her lungs.

***

It’s her forever girl.

“You look old,” Kara whispers, completely shocked by the revelation. “Still beautiful, obviously, just… older than I’ve seen you before?”

“That’s because we are old, stupid.” Lena just grins at her. “Hello you.” A wethered, wrinkly palm lifts and cups her cheek. “It’s been a while.”

“How long do we have?”

“I don’t like to guess. It’s just nice saying hello at the very least, it’s been a while since we did that.”

“Lena if we don’t have much time then I need you to promise to do something for me,” Kara rushes out the words. “I don’t want to be alone when you’re gone. I take it back. I need you to—”

“I’m not going to find a way to kill you, Kara, but thank you for always asking so politely when we have these little talks.” Lena just grins and shakes her head. “We found a much better solution. That boy of ours? Kid’s a chip off the old block.”

Kara just blinks and doesn’t understand.

“Don’t turn around for a second,” Lena whispers and slips her hands up her wife’s cheeks to keep her steady and focused. “Just keep looking at me, just like that, all heart-eyed and stupid, and tell me goodbye like you mean it please.”

“Are you…” Kara stops. “Am _I_ going somewhere?”

“Yeah, but we’re going somewhere together. I need you to not ask questions, just trust me that it’s going to be okay.” Lena glances over at Itsy, deciding today is the right time. Wordlessly, Itsy nods back. “I need you to look me in the eyes and tell me goodbye like you mean it, please.”

“I don’t want to say—”

“This isn’t about what you want,” Lena interrupts. “It’s about what I need. And what I need is for you to say goodbye before you forget me again, please, we don’t have much time.”

They pause for more seconds than they can afford to waste.

“Goodbye, Lena Luthor.” Kara pushes her forehead into her wife’s forehead gently, their noses touching. “It’s never goodbye, not really at least, it’s just see you later, it’s just see you around.”

“Goodbye, Supergirl.” Lena pulls her into a hug, her hand slipping around the base of Kara’s neck to keep her chin over the roof of her shoulder. “Thank you for my life, Kara, thank you for every moment of it. It’s goodbye, sweetheart, for me at least.”

Kara feels herself begin to slip. She grows unsure of the voice she now cannot attach a face to. A moment later—or maybe five minutes, she can’t be sure—she begins to tug slightly against the arms around her body that won’t let go, blinking and breathing fast, becoming more and more uncomfortable. Whose hugging her?

Where’s Lena? Kara thinks.

“Goodbye, my love,” a familiar voice whispers.

Kara pulls away too roughly, or at least that’s what she decides once her eyes land on the kind-faced old lady stood in front of her. She looks familiar, Kara isn’t sure where from, but she has a slightly pained expression and the superhero takes this as a symptom that she may have accidentally hurt the old woman.

“Sorry, are you okay?” Kara worries, guilty and checking. “I… I must have spaced out for a second. I was. I think. I think I was with my wife—” She scratches her head, trying to remember the tangible facts as though she had just awoken from a deep dream. “There were groceries, there were groceries and she said she had gotten the birthday cake.” Kara blinks hard, trying desperately to put pieces together.

_Whose birthday was it again?_

Kara couldn’t seem to remember.

“Is it my birthday today?” Kara asks the kind old woman.

“It is,” the woman replies, smiling kindly despite that strangely solemn expression. “How old are you today?” she asks.

“My son was just born in the spring so I think… I think that makes me…” Kara comes to a halt, struggling to do the math.

“It makes you twenty-eight, baby,” Lena speaks up behind her. “You’re twenty-eight today. We’re picking up the cake and heading home, remember? Alex and your mom are watching Charlie, everything is okay, everyone is safe, and we absolutely have time for an ice cream detour on the way back.” Her wife grins.

“Lena!” Kara gasps in relief.

It feels as though the fog completely lifts from her brain, the world suddenly makes sense again. The anxiety leaves as quickly as steam escapes a window. Lena is there, perfect, beautiful, smiling, her emerald eyes glittering and her arms stretched out for a hug.

“I was worried, I didn’t know where you were,” Kara exhales the tension from her body and tucks herself into Lena’s safe shape. “I don’t think I’m feeling too good. Can we just grab the ice cream and go home?” She grabs her wife’s hand and pads toward the front door.

“We can go home, baby, if that’s what you want.” Lena slips an arm around her shoulder. “Do you want to say goodbye before we leave?” She glances to the old woman in the kitchen with two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on plates.

Kara stops and stares, as though she’s forgotten something important, as though she knows this woman the same way she knows all the people she loves the very most in this world. It doesn’t make sense, and she can’t help but glance around, eyes flitting, trying to make it make sense.

The anxiety begins to bubble up in her belly again.

“It’s okay don’t be scared, we said goodbye, remember? It’s okay if you leave now,” the old woman reminds. “Go, be with your wife.” She nods towards the front door, reassuring in tone.

“Can I come back and see you?” Kara blurts nervously. “If I remember something important, I can come and visit?”

“Whenever you want.” The woman grins a beaming white smile as though it’s a wonderful idea. “You can come around here whenever you feel like it, whether you remember important things or not.”

“Okay, thank you, that—that makes me feel better.” Kara nods, pressing herself a bit deeper into Lena’s side, clutching a bit tighter on her hand. “Ice cream?” Kara whispers.

“Ice cream,” Lena pecks her temple.

[ _(This story has a soft epilogue for your gentle heart which you can already find HERE along with all my other stuff!)_ ](http://theevangelion.tumblr.com)


	2. EPILOGUE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Had to take a crack of fixing your broken hearts because we've had enough sad things this year, haven't we?

Emma sits perched on Charlie's desk, her fingers gliding along the edges, her heels kicking softly as though something is on her mind. It’s nothing new. Emma always has something on her mind, big innovations, big advances, insane technology developments that only make sense once she has decided to let the world in on her tinkering.

Charlie is used to it all by now. He just looks at his wife, feels like a permanently lovesick teenage boy, and then he shakes his head in concession.

“Do it, babe. I know you’re waiting.” Charlie fixes his cufflinks and adjusts his shirt collar in the reflection of the highrise glass.

“What?” Emma blinks.

“The thing you do.” Charlie waves it along. “Do the thing.”

“What thing?” Emma laughs.

“The thing where you’re very smart.” He turns to his wife, quite serious about it. “The thing where you have some insane, unbelievable, great idea and all I can do is stare at you in astoundment that I didn’t think of it first. So, do the thing.”

“Well,” Emma says, flattered and yet still seemingly conflicted about something. “I think it’s one that’s going to initiate an emotionally draining conversation, and we did agree that we wouldn’t do those anymore before lunch time…”

“Oh dear,” Charlie whispers mutely, closing his eyes. “That means it’s about one of my mothers. That means it’s probably a conversation better had sooner rather than later.”

“Are you in a present headspace for it? It can wait until you’ve had lunch if not.”

“No, no,” Charlie reassures. “We can have the conversation.”

Emma reaches behind herself and takes the hologram projector button from his desk. This means only one thing to Charlie: not only has Emma came up with an idea, she has also done the research, the analysis, and created a consequent presentation collating it all together.

He can’t help but laugh and try to stifle it, because having a wife who went to the trouble of presenting all of her ideas in this manner, so meticulously, so thoughtfully, was absolutely the reason he had never won an argument since they were children. It was also the reason Emma and Mom had always gotten along like a house on fire, Charlie knew that too.

“I adjusted the parameters on your nanotech project, ran some numbers and simulations… just for fun, just to give me something to do while I waited for the girls to finish school.” Emma shrugs, her hands moving in the air to zoom and adjust the projection of neural pathways. Then, she pushes the hologram over for Charlie to take a look at. “I think I’ve figured out a way to capture your mother’s entire imprint, Charlie.”

Charlie feels their nanotech is perhaps the greatest advancement mankind has made since the moon-landings, but it’s one that must always remain a secret. The world had only just started to become comfortable with the idea of aliens and settlers from distant worlds, and even then it was still a tumultuous process of shifting public opinion. If the public caught wind that he had perfected the human condition and created a new lifeform that would long outlive all of them…

Well, they’d start calling him Lex Luthor.

It was better for everyone if Luthor Manor remained disconnected from the world, cloaked and shielded away behind perception filters like a bubble reality made perfectly for Mama and Cyber Mom. No one could bother them that way, no one could snoop around and cause problems for their eternal happy ever after.

“Things are perfect just as they are, Emma. I drove up to the manor last week, Cyber Mom and Dementia Mom were relieving a family trip we took to Valencia when I was a little boy. Cyber Mom says that Mama’s been doing a lot better, apparently Mama has been getting airtime for morning flights outside — it’s the first time she’s got to fly in years.” It warms his heart that his mother finally remembered how to fly again. “Things are good, is what I’m trying to say,” he emphasises. “Better than they have been in years. She’s stable and her symptoms are improving a little.”

But Emma just sits there with this pensive look on her face, her lips wound inside of her teeth, her copper eyebrows worked half way up her forehead as though he doesn’t understand.

“Okay, fine.” Charlie sighs. “Do the thing. Tell me what it is that I’m not understanding.”

“I’m not talking about Lena’s imprint,” Emma says plainly. “I’m saying that I’ve figured out a way to replicate _Kara_.”

“No, Emma.” Charlie stares in disbelief. “Why would I make another version of my invincible mother who can shoot death-lasers out of her fucking eyes—just in case you forgot that part—and who also gets lost sometimes on her way back from the bathroom and can’t remember to turn the stove off.” Charlie blinks. “Why would I do that?”

“Because this version of Kara,” Emma says slowly, expanding the hologram projection of the neural pathways bobbing in front of him. “Would not have dementia, Charlie. I can build artificial pathways that heal themselves and reconnect the dots between her memories, for a replicated nanotech version of her at least.”

They had explored similar avenues to this right at the very beginning of development. Whether there would be a way to use the nanotechnology to help rebuild the organic pathways in Mama’s brain that had started to fizzle. It wasn’t possible to mesh the nanotechnology with living organic matter. Despite his best efforts, Charlie could not cure the incurable.

Mama was gone.

He had already grieved it.

“The world needs Superwoman, Charlie. It’s been ten years since she was around to save the day and things…” Emma glances out towards the city horizon, as though she isn’t so certain it will be there in years to come. “Things haven’t balanced out like we thought they would, Charlie. The DEO can’t keep on top of it without her.”

“Superwoman is dead,” Charlie says firmly. “She died a long time ago, and this…” He points to the hologram, to the bobbing and suspended data of his Mama’s corrected neural pathways. “This would destroy my mother, Emma. She’s nearly eighty, she’s only just got used to not making two peanut butter sandwiches at lunchtime anymore, I would go so far to say it might kill her.”

“Okay, fine, it’s your decision Charlie.” Emma lets it go, turning off the hologram projector. “Just, take a look at the data later on if you get curious.”

“I wont.”

***

Emma awakes to a crack of light from the hallway slicing across her bleary-eyes. Charlie stands quietly in the doorway, his tablet in his hands, glasses pushed up on top of his curly black hair.

“Do you always have to stand there like Ghost of Christmas Past whenever you’re stuck on something in the middle of the night?” Emma clears her throat. “It wouldn’t kill you to bring coffee either, surely.” She already starts getting out of bed, ready to help the idiot with whatever he had gotten himself stuck on this time.

“You’re sure the data simulations are accurate?” Charlie asks.

Emma pauses and looks at him, realising they’re finally ready to talk about the Kara conversation that had been parked some months ago. She expected this, somewhat. There had been an attack mid-west, one that had taken out a middle school just like the one their daughters attended. The world still needed Superwoman, or at least a version of her, and Charlie was finally beginning to understand the truth of that too.

“Two and half million data simulations, Charlie.” Emma slips on her robe and pads out of the door with him towards the home office. “Yeah, baby. I’m sure it’s accurate.”

“Okay, alright,” Charlie replies with a relieved sigh. “But you’re telling my Mom.”

***

It’s normal for young teenagers to grow distant with their grandparents, Emma thinks. Her girls are thirteen and twelve now, caught right between that strange age of starting to like boys but also still requiring a night light just in case monsters might, possibly, potentially be lurking under the bed.

Amy, her oldest, she drags her heels when it’s time to visit Emma’s folks. It isn’t a problem that Charlie can commiserate with. For some reason, Lena is utterly immune to the teenage indifference. Amy is at Lena’s place five days a week, at least. Bella too, but Emma doesn’t feel her youngest is old enough yet to be trusted cycling the two miles back and forth safely — which means Emma is also at Lena’s place five times a week to drop and ferry the children back and forth.

She doesn’t feel resentful about it. Emma will still be here five evenings a week when the kids are at college, she thinks.

“Lena sit down, I’ll make the coffee.” Emma moves around the kitchen, knowing exactly where everything is kept from muscle-memory alone. “Lena!” Emma rolls her eyes when a weathered hand shoes her away towards the counter stools.

“You don’t put enough whiskey in mine,” Lena jokes, her voice husking and aged. “Sit down before you give me a headache.”

“And you put too much in mine, Ma.” Emma exasperates at her mother-in-law. “Seriously, if Charlie ever finds out about Margarita Mondays—”

“He won’t.” Lena shoots her a stern look, and then eyeballs the teenager doing her math homework at the kitchen island. “Your father won’t find out will he Amy?” Lena levels at her granddaughter.

“My lips are sealed, Nana.” Amy doesn’t even glance from her equations. “Although…” Amy pauses, her lips worked into the same tight grin that all the biological Luthors seemed to possess. “If you were to let me, I don’t know, play with the Supersuit in the garage? My lips would be _airtight_.”

“Let me look at this, give it here,” Lena takes the homework sheet and glances it over, double-checking the answers and making sure everything was correct. “Looks good, kiddo. Go play, but do not— _and I mean_ _do not_ —shoot pulse beams at my lawn ornaments again.”

“Promise,” Amy pecks her grandmother’s cheek and runs off to cause trouble.

“You altered the power settings, yes?” Emma murmurs at her mother-in-law, just to be sure.

“Mhm.” Lena mutters back, waving her granddaughter out of the back door. “She’ll be lucky if she blows over a gnome or gets higher than two feet off the ground.”

“God I love you.” Emma appreciates the careful line they both tow between reckless and sensible, how it so rarely needs clarification. “How are things with you anyway?”

“Same as they were yesterday.” Lena shrugs. “How is work?”

“Good considering I’m married to the boss,” Emma jokes. “It’s fun having annual performance meetings with the man who fathered my children. So fun.”

“You’re head of product development, you sit on the board, the business is practically half yours anyway,” Lena reminds. “Don’t let Charlie push you around just because he’s stressed.”

“Never have, never will,” Emma reassures. “He knows I’m your favourite. You’d kill him if he raised his voice at me.”

“He better not,” Lena glares.

“He never has, he never would.”

“Good, that’s good.” Lena pauses for a moment, nodding and looking around just to make sure neither of the girls were listening. “He was quiet when I went for lunch with him yesterday, said he had some things on his mind but he couldn’t tell me yet. I thought, you know, maybe Kara wasn’t doing so good. I drove up to the Manor, her and Itsy had just gotten back from Costco and pedicures.” It makes her grin. “Kara looked... so much better than she has in, well, forever.” She nods to herself calmly. “You figured out how to replicate and repair Kara’s neural pathways, didn’t you? That’s why Charlie didn’t order dessert.”

Wordlessly, Emma reaches for the whiskey bottle to top her mother-in-law’s drink.

“Mhm, thought so.” Lena just nods. “The world... it doesn’t seem to know what to do without the Woman of Steel, does it?” She pauses. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t empathise.”

***

Her eightieth birthday is the next big milestone.

Lena doesn’t bother with an event planner, she hangs the decorations herself, bakes everything from scratch, spends an entire week shopping around farmer’s markets just to stay busy, just to give herself productive things to do. The pay-off is worth it, her entire family gathers around the table fighting over the serving dishes, and Lena feels she can say with some certainty now that she is finally a good cook.

If only Kara was around to see it, she thinks.

Emma creeps up behind her, voice low as though it’s a conversation just for them. “Your office, a bottle of tequila, six o’clock tonight. I told Charlie we’re having a Downton Abbey marathon and cheeseboard night. He’ll drive Amy and Bella home and then we can break out the margarita mix.”

“Yes!” Lena hisses to herself, excited. “Fuck, I love Margarita Mondays.”

***

In her office, they go over the final data projections and drink margaritas until the cicadas start humming outside.

It feels as though they’re holding Kara’s entire life right in a hologram suspension, drifty memories replaying, sounds she once heard some forty, fifty years ago crooning in the background. They run the final protocols that will knit it all together and create a sentient, living, feeling version of Superwoman once again. And, they also drink their third margarita while they do it. _Multitasking_.

Lena had insisted she was going to be a part of this thing. The world needed Superwoman. It was right that she was the quality assurance on all of this, she was the most qualified woman for the job after all. Who else knew Kara Danvers better than her own wife?

In her mind, this is nothing more than nobel deed. Her last gift to the world, Lena thinks. She had her lifetime with Kara after all, it was beautiful, funny, wonderful, with the occasional wobble once in a while too. It was perfect, and it was finished, and Lena felt that was the natural order of things. One of them was always going to inevitably outlive the other, that’s the story of marriage, it was just that theirs had a surprise ending.

Life was full of surprises, really.

To Lena, it was what made things so fun most of the time.

“Emma,” Lena rubs her temple, blinking and glancing over the numbers. “Do you think you could…” She stops. “It’s silly, forget I said anything.”

“Nothing you say is silly.” Emma doesn’t look up from the computer. “Spill, Ma?”

“Do you think it would be possible to extract memories while maintaining the integrity of the neural framework?” Lena queries. “If we took certain things away, removed some stuff, do you think she could still be… _her?_ ”

“I don’t know. Are you asking if I can make Cyber Kara forget about a bad argument you had twenty years ago or are you asking if I can make her forget something bigger?”

“Something bigger.”

“How much bigger?”

“Me.” Lena turns and looks at her daughter-in-law, calm and serious. “Could you make her forget me altogether?”

She’s eighty, and her lack of permanence doesn’t escape her. Lena feels that it would be too cruel; to bring Kara back with the full history of their lives, the memories, the love between them, only to leave her so shortly afterwards.

They had their time together, she thinks.

***

Lena awakes early in the morning to a phone call from Emma and a yapping puppy at the foot of the bed in desperate need of playtime.

“Do I need to put a pot of coffee on?” Lena asks her daughter-in-law, saving the why and what for once she arrived.

“No Ma,” Emma sighs. “I tried to do what you asked. I’m just calling to let you know…”

“The framework collapses when you run the simulation with memories of me removed.” Lena confirms her own lifelong suspicions. “There’s no Superwoman without Lena Luthor.” It makes a sad smile push up her cheeks.

“What do you want me to do, Ma?”

“Whatever you and Charlie think is best, Emma.”

***

When Emma hangs around the kitchen waiting for the girls to finish tidying, Lena can tell something is on her mind. It’s this pensive look that Emma seems to possess any time she’s stuck on something, as though she doesn’t know how to express herself articulately despite wanting to do precisely that.

“Spill, before I beat it out of you.” Lena jokes.

“I figured it out, the thing you asked me,” Emma blurts.

Lena stops what she’s doing. “Okay, definitely spill.”

“We were trying to create an entire copy of Superwoman while also removing her core memories of you, that was what made it impossible, there’s no Superwoman without Lena Luthor. But… the answer was staring us right in the face.” Emma shakes her head, as though it were obvious. “If we capped her memory to the age of twenty-three and regenerated her at the exact point just before she met you…” Emma looks at Lena with the answer written all over her face.

“There isn’t a Superwoman without the history of Lena Luthor, but the world could have Supergirl instead.” Lena pushes a smile. “Supergirl was great too, you know, fantastic little red skirt.” It makes her happy and sad, all at once. “God, she was fun when she was twenty-three.”

***

In the living room, Kara Danvers sits on the sofa and fiddles with her glasses. It’s her, not just some kind of robot, make-believe, coffee percolating machine that’s doing its best impression of Supergirl. It is Kara Danvers, extracted right at the age of twenty-three, living and feeling and oh so wonderfully alive.

“Lena Luthor,” Kara smiles and finally catches the woman peering at her by the living room door. “It’s... it’s good to finally meet you.” She stands and pushes out her hand. “Emma explained that you helped bring me back. I know who you are, I just don’t think we had a chance to meet properly in my timeline, you know, before the real version of me…” She wants to say died, but she doesn’t know how.

That was the story they gave her, that the real Kara Danvers had died some fifty years ago trying to save the world in a fit of heroics, and they had only just developed the technology to bring her back to life. Well, a version of her, at least.

“You are the real version of you, Kara, and it is so nice to finally meet you after all of these years,” Lena promises the young woman. “Try not to get hung-up on the mechanics of things, just because you can disappear into glitter does not mean you are not the real Kara Danvers.” Lena laughs and feels happier than she has done in...

_Longer than she cares to remember._

“Thank you, for bringing me back Miss Luthor.” Kara clutches her sweater sleeves, her expression tight and grateful. “I promise I won’t let you down this time. If the world needs help, Supergirl will be there to answer the call.”

“Just don’t forget to have fun too, Kara,” Lena says quickly. “It’s easy to get caught up in the work, to feel like that’s your only purpose. I remember what that felt like before I met my wife.” Lena nods to herself. “Just promise me you’ll make time to have your own life too?”

“I’ll try my best,” Kara pushes forward and gives her a hug.

“Good,” Lena tucks her chin over that familiar shoulder and holds on for just a moment too long. “That’s good.” Her eyes flutter shut and her brain floods with memories that feel like a lifetime ago. “It's been so long since I've gotten to say these words, forgive me if it sounds trite, but would you indulge an old woman?”

“What words, Miss Luthor?”

Lena pulls away, inhaling deeply to stave off a few bittersweet tears.

“Fly away, Supergirl,” Lena says with the most tender, heart-eyed expression.

In her most private thoughts, beneath her outward assertions that she has come to terms with it all, that they had their time together and that truth has been absorbed and grieved. The urge to say what she really wanted to say still sits there, unmoveable, undeniable.

_I love you, baby._

_It's so good to see you again._

But Lena says nothing, she says nothing as the others talk and drink tea, she says nothing as the news reports an urgent developing situation, and she says nothing as the little hero takes off for her first good deed of many. Lena just watches, proud, unresentful, a feeling of quietude washing over her.

“Fly away, Supergirl,” Lena whispers. “Fly, fly away.”

***

In the hospital, Lena drifts in and out of sleep like a wayfarer treading along the whims of the morphine drip. Sometimes there’s food on the little tray waiting for her, other times she awakes to a blanket tucked up and over her shoulders. The only constant is the girl who sits in the plastic chair, reading books like a sentinel with nothing better to do.

“Don’t you have a world to save?” Lena croaks slightly, grinning and surprised to see the familiar face.

Kara hums and doesn’t look up from her page. “School bus hurtling towards a farmer’s market at four. I was gone for a few minutes, but Emma was here so I didn’t think it would be a problem.” She pushes a smile. “How are you feeling?”

“As good as one can feel under the circumstances.”

“That’s good,” Kara fixes her glasses, tight-lipped and unreachable. “I can alter your perception field if you’re tired of being in a hospital room. We could sit by the beach instead if you want?”

Around her, Lena watches the room gently transform into a golden hued beach, the waves lapping over the vast shoreline, rushing up and towards their feet before gently sinking back into the body of water.

“Stop playing with my sense of reality,” Lena tells her off. “Give me my hospital room back, now please.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.” Kara softly lets the perception melt away back into the dreary hospital room. “But if you change your mind…”

“I won’t, baby.”

Lena kicks herself as soon as she says it, remembering instantaneously that this is not her wife — not in any meaningful sense of the word at least. It’s still Kara Danvers, Lena knows that, it’s just Kara from a point before they actually met. There is no Superwoman, only Supergirl. It’s better for everyone that way — less broken hearts all round.

“Sorry, Kara.” Lena quickly glances to the morphine drip, explaining it away as though it were nothing. “It’s… good stuff. The pain meds, they’re great, but they make me a little…” She circles a gnarled finger next to her temple.

Kara just nods solemnly.

“ _Or_ … we could stop pretending that Google isn’t a thing and I don’t know perfectly well who you and I are to each another, Lena.” She shoots Lena a look. “I’m… I’m trying to understand. I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I cannot tell you how much it _fucking sucks_ learning the covernotes of my life via Wikipedia.”

“Shit, I really should have seen that coming.”

“Yeah, Lena.” Kara thumbs the page of her book aggressively. “Just out of curiosity, why did you do it?” She glances at Lena again, furious and trying not to be. “Why did you only give me twenty-three years of my history? Was I that awful to be married to that you just couldn’t bare me remembering any of it?”

“You were the best.” Lena grins, shaking her head. “Believe me, you were the greatest fucking wife in the world — Jesus, you have no idea.” She breaks into a coughing fit.

“I’m so angry with you,” Kara’s tone wobbled, but on the outside she was calm and steady. “It feels like I had this entire life, this entire family, all of these things that I’m supposed to have emotional connections to.” She lifts her hands in exasperation. “But it just feels like a story — like it happened to someone else, not me.”

“Is sorry a good place to start?”

“A good place to start would be the beginning, Lena.” Kara lifts her brow, serious and determined. “Tell me about our lives together, please.”

“Oh, honey.” Lena coughs, laughing slightly despite the seriousness of the conversation to hand. “I don’t have enough time to take you all the way back to the beginning. But, I know someone who does... if you can be very patient and wait for a little while.”

“I don’t want someone else to tell me our love story — I want you to tell me.”

Lena just laughs at that.

“I will. It will be me,” Lena promises. “You’re just going to have to wait a little while. I promise it will be worth it.”

“Were we happy, just tell me that much?”

“Kara,” Lena becomes utterly serious and convicted. “It’s because we were so happy that I had to take your memories. Oh, if you knew how complete we were, how in love we were, the endless fucking years of joy. But, I am old now Kara, and I had my lifetime with you.” Lena shakes her head solemnly. “I couldn’t bring you back and then leave you so quickly after. You wouldn’t have survived it.”

“So I’m just supposed to find someone else?” Kara shrugs. “I’m just supposed to assume that true love like that happens more than once?”

“It does happen more than once,” Lena sighs and blinks away sleep. “You still have all of it to come, one day, you just have to wait a little while…”

“How long is a little while?”

“Three hundred years if my math is correct, give or take a decade. If I know myself as well as I think I know myself... I will find you, _believe me_.”

***

22nd March 2330.

There’s a bar half a block from the new DEO headquarters—which haven’t technically been anything close to _new_ for at least two hundred years—but for the last few decades it’s where all of the new recruits go to drink and socialise after work. Kara tags along sometimes with her friends. It makes her feel human, gives her some semblance of a normal life more than anything else despite her immunity to the passage of time.

A woman with jet black hair sits at the bar, sipping a drink all by herself. It isn’t a sight that is out of the ordinary in Kara’s mind. But what is out of the ordinary is that the stranger at the bar wasn’t a woman at all, not in the organic sense of the word at least.

Kara can see the tiny glittering nanotech particles, invisible to everybody else, but they radiate from her figure as though she has this golden light exuding from her skin.

It had been three hundred years, Kara realised a conversation she once had with someone important. Three hundred years, give or take.

Kara felt a sense of completeness wash over her soul, as though she didn’t have all the answers but soon she would. If her suspicions were correct then this woman was nanotech too, and that meant Kara wasn’t alone on this planet anymore.

“Hello you,” Kara says dumbly towards the woman’s turned spine. “I think we’ve been waiting a long time for each other.”

When the woman turns around, her emerald eyes light up and her mouth instantly stretches into a smile.

“Hello you,” Lena Luthor whispers back, her eyes darting as though she too can see a golden hue of nanoparticles vibrating around Kara’s form. “You look... you look younger than I think I’ve ever seen you before.” She blinks and can’t make sense of it.

“You do too.” Kara scratches her head and thinks back to the eighty year old woman she met all those years ago. “You should know that the real Lena—I mean, you know, the other Lena— _the first one_ ,” Kara settles on a descriptor that feels least offensive. “I only have my memories up to the age of twenty-three. She told me that one day she would explain everything, that it would all make sense, and then she died and I assumed there would never be answers.” Kara blinks, feeling as though she were finally understanding. “Could you give me answers, please? I've... I think I've been waiting the longest time for you.”

“Take my hand.” Lena offers her palm outwards, her expression gentle and loving, but there's tears in her eyes and that doesn't escape Kara. “I can give you answers, but brace yourself, because your entire life is about to change forever, Kara Danvers.”

When their fingers meet, Kara feels information explode through her entire being. It’s as though all of her memories are suddenly collating and rearranging on the bookshelf of her mind. She can remember her first life, the entirety of it, their wedding day, a gunshot wound, a tiny chubby baby with his car turned upside down and his finger slipping the axle. Dementia. Oh fuck, there was dementia.

Kara feels her eyes widen, it feels as though she's viewing those years through a looking glass from Lena's perspective. At the time... Kara couldn't see, couldn't understand, couldn't fathom how much love she was being shown. Her wife always there despite not being recognised, always loving her despite not being loved back.

Lena was always there.

Lena never, ever left her.

Kara remembers everything. She remembers all of it. And it isn't the memories of someone else—it is, and it isn't—but it doesn't feel like it because these are her memories too, she is Kara Danvers, and the woman sat in front of her, the stunning, immaculate, beautiful tender-eyed woman who is also not a woman in any organic sense of the word too. She's Lena Luthor.

She's her wife.

She's her forever girl.

“Hi baby,” Lena almost introduces herself again, laughing and astounded. “It’s been a while.”

Kara can see the shape of Lena’s nanotech memories too, the last three hundred years of her life without need for explanation about where she’s been hiding this entire time.

Kara sees a conversation this version of Lena and the human version of Lena once shared together shortly before the latter's passing, a final visit to the Luthor Manor, with the human Lena promising this version that it was all going to be okay, that she didn't have to be scared of an eternity facing her once the job was done.

 _I've taken care of it_ , the human Lena had promised. _Kara got her forever girl, it's only right that you have your forever girl too.  
_

“It's rude to snoop,” Lena chuckles and closes the door to her memories, as though she can feel her wife sifting through and looking at them.

“You spent three hundred years taking care of me?” Kara blinks, staring at her wife in utter astoundment. “I… I had dementia and you took care of me until the very end?”

“Oh baby it wasn’t all bad,” Lena replies, as though three hundred years was just a drop in the ocean. “We had some great trips to Costco. It was wonderful having that time with you. Until this moment, until this very second, they were the happiest days of my life.”

“I love you,” Kara whispers instantly, heart-eyed and complete. “I remember, everything, all of it, and I'm telling you that I love you, Lena Luthor.”

“I love you more,” Lena whispers slowly, as though she's waited a long time to get to say those words. “I love you so, so, so much more.”

“I know,” Kara kisses her hard and sudden, their bodies fitting together perfectly as though they were made for one another. “I know you do, baby, without a shadow of a doubt, that gets to be your line forever now.”

Forever, Kara thinks.

They've got each other _forever_ now.

[READ MORE OF THE SAD BITCH/PORN STUFF HERE](http://theevangelion.tumblr.com)


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